The Anatomy of Melancholy
Sunday 30 September 2007 22:15-0:00 (Radio 3)
Janet Suzman and Heathcote Williams read poems and prose by Robert Burton, Keats, Gray, Tennyson, Dickinson, Arnold and Proust on various aspects of melancholy. With music by Dowland, Purcell, Schubert, Schumann and Britten.
Duration:
1 hour 45 minutes
The Anatomy of Melancholy
Janet Suzman
Heathcote Williams
Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy is one of the great unread literary works and it's the starting point for today's programme which explores various shades of melancholy with occasional mood swings to its (bi-)polar opposite mania. Although it was adored by Samuel Johnson, Keats et al The Anatomy has never been in the mainstream, partly because it is so long, so rambling and so full of obscure quotations. It is the work of an obsessive and fertile brain; and it defines melancholy in the broadest terms from darkest depression, through wistful happiness and nostalgia to raving madness.
Melancholy was Dowland's specialist subject (Dowland semper Dolens) - he was the quintessential composer of all things sad - he built a whole career out of it. And a generation later came Robert Burton ("Great travail is created for all men") who codified the whole phenomenon in his Magnum Opus.It is not too far-fetched to imagine Burton in his dusty study, penning his words with a viol consort in the background.
The 1st of the Sea Interludes from Britten's Peter Grimes (Dawn) conjures up the melancholy loneliness of the sea; the 2nd (Storm) reflects inner turmoil as well as a storm at sea. Tennyson (Break, Break, Break) and Matthew Arnold (Dover Beach) both use the image of the sea to suggest, in the first, desolation and in the second, the "Sea of Faith's.melancholy, long, withdrawing roar."
Auden's American-inflected reading of his Musee des Beaux Arts leads us into a section on suffering (Auden) and the pain of unrequited love (Proust) as portrayed in painting and music.
The early romantics were "half in love with easeful death" and positively swooned with melancholy. The classic example of this is Keats' Ode to a Nightingale. The nightingale as a symbol of melancholy is taken up in Granados' The Maiden and the Nightingale.
A detour via Robert Burton again into the bitter-sweet melancholy of the lover ("Every lover admires his mistress") - a theme taken up a generation later in Purcell's If love's a sweet passion from The Fairy Queen.
And so to the darker side of melancholy: Death (Sylvia Plath's Lady Lazarus), Delusions of Grandeur (Shakespeare's Richard II), Madness (Peter Maxwell Davies's Eight Songs for a Mad King)
In the end Burton advises acceptance (Dickinson's "After great pain"; Copland's The Chariot from 12 Poems of Emily Dickinson). But ultimately he concludes "Even in the midst of laughing there is sorrow, even in the midst of all our feasting and jollity there is grief and discontent". Which leads us sadly back to Dowland.
Clive Portbury, Producer.
Details of music and readings
Timings are from the beginning of the programme
00:00:00
DOWLAND
Semper Dowland semper Dolens
Fretwork
Virgin VC5 45005 2
Track 8
00:00:04
BURTON
From A Description of melancholy:
"Great travail is created for all men"
Reader: Heathcote Williams
00:03:37
BRITTEN
Dawn + Storm from 4 Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes
Ulster Orchestra
Vernon Handley
Chandos 241-2
00:03:37
TENNYSON
Break, Break, Break
Reader: Janet Suzman
00:05:27
MATTHEW ARNOLD
Dover Beach
Reader: Heathcote Williams
00:11:41
WH AUDEN
Musee des Beaux Arts #
Reader: WH Auden
Library of Congress P L1
00:13:02
MASSENET
Meditation from Thais
Renaud Capucon (violin)
Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine
Yves Abel
Decca 466 766-2
CD1 Track 24
00:13:44
PROUST
Extract from The Remembrance of Things Past
Translated by Scott-Montcrieff
Reader: Heathcote Williams
00:18:38
KEATS
Ode to a Nightingale
Reader: Janet Suzman
00:23:27
GRANADOS
The Maiden and the Nightingale from Goyescas
Jean-Francois Heisser (piano)
Apex 2564 69984-3
CD1 Track 4
00:30:15
BURTON
From A Description of melancholy:
"Every lover admires his mistress"
Reader: Heathcote Williams
Dur: 02.48
00:33:03
PURCELL
If love's a sweet passion form The Fairy Queen
Jennifer Smith (soprano)
Stephen Varcoe (baritone)
English Baroque Soloists
John Eliot Gardiner
Archiv 419 221-2
CD1 Track 22
00:41:05
SYLVIA PLATH
Lady Lazarus (extract)
Reader: Sylvia Plath (BBC archive recording)
00:42:02
RICHARD STRAUSS
Dance of the 7 veils from Salome
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Fritz Reiner
BMG Classics 09026 68636 2
Track 4
00:51:40
WORDSWORTH
Solitary Reaper
Reader: Janet Suzman
00:53:06
RICHARD RODGERS
Little Girl Blue
Nina Simone
Charly CDGR 295
Track 4
00:57:23
SHAKESPEARE
Richard II: "Of comfort let no man speak"
Reader: Maurice Evans
Pearl Gems 0015
CD2 Track 4
00:59:50
PETER MAXWELL DAVIES
Last 2 of the Eight Songs for a Mad King
Julius Eastman (baritone)
The Fires of London
Peter Maxwell Davies
Unicorn-Kanchana DKP 9052
Track 2
01:08:05
EMILY DICKINSON
After great pain
Reader: Janet Suzman
Dur: 0.52
01:08:55
COPLAND
The Chariot from 12 Poems of Emily Dickinson
Susan Chilcott (soprano)
Iain Burnside (piano)
Black Box BBM 1074
Track 17
01:12:15
SCHUBERT (arr. Reinbert de Leeuw)
Standchen
Barbara Sukowa (voice)
Schonberg Ensemble
Winter and Winter 910 132-2
Track 18
01:12:25
HUYSMANS
Extract from Against Nature
Reader: Heathcote Williams
01:15:18
GRAY
Elegy written in a country churchyard (extract)
Reader: Janet Suzman
01:18:18
SCHUMANN
Adagio Op 70
Steven Isserlis (cello)
Christoph Eschenbach (piano)
BMG Classics 09026 68800 2
Track 9
01:23:25
LAWRENCE
Grey Evening
Reader: Janet Suzman
01:24:42
RICHARD STRAUSS
Im Abendrot from 4 Last Songs
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (soprano)
Philharmonia Orchestra
Otto Ackermann
EMI 5 67495 2
Track 4
01:32:58
BURTON
From A Description of melancholy:
"Many and sundry are the means"
Reader: Heathcote Williams
01:33:22
MASCAGNI
Brindisi from Cavalleria Rusticana
Carlo Bergonzi (tenor)
Chorus and Orchestra of La Scala Milan
Herbert von Karajan
DG 419 257-2
CD2 Track 2
01:35:25
BURTON
From A Description of melancholy:
"Even in the midst of laughing"
Reader: Heathcote Williams
01:38:20
DOWLAND
All ye, whom Love or Fortune hath betray'd
Rufus Muller (tenor)
Christopher Wilson (lute)
ASV GAU 135
Track 14
